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Sunday, November 16, 2014

TV Recap: Once Upon a Time 4-8 - Smash the Mirror

Two hours! Two
glorious hours! And we even got some
answers. And yet, those two hours aren’t
enough. And we have to wait two weeks to
find out what happens next! But for now,
let’s glory in the two hours.

And get started with the flashback, which finally reveals
how Elsa got trapped in the urn.

Ingrid hides the hat and then talks to the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice to try to make a deal to find the other sister she so desperately
wants. The first sister will be
Elsa. However, the Apprentice says that
the Sorcerer doesn’t make deals.

And so Ingrid returns home and starts trying to turn Elsa
against Anna by lying about what Anna has been up to, claiming that Anna
intended to use the hat to trap Elsa.
Elsa quickly see through the lies and comes up with a plan to trap
Ingrid back in the urn. Together the
sisters hunt through the castle to find it hidden in the East wing, aka the
former home of Ingrid and her original two sisters. They also find a frozen Hans there
(interesting twist).

The plan at this point is to lure Ingrid down to the dungeon
to “banish” Anna, but Anna will spring the urn on her and trap her
instead. However, Ingrid has been on to
them the entire time and traps Anna as soon as Elsa walks away. She then takes a small piece of glass and
uses the Spell of Broken Sight on her, which makes her see only the bad in
others – in this case Elsa.

And so a freed Anna goes and confronts Elsa with the urn in
her hand. As she starts to list all the
things that Elsa has done to harm her (and they are pretty accurate), Ingrid
shows up, insisting that this is the real Anna and urging Elsa to destroy
her. Elsa won’t, however, and Ingrid
winds up watching in horror as Anna opens the urn and traps Elsa inside. Immediately the spell is broken, and Anna quickly
what has happened. Kristoff then rushes
into the room, but Ingrid decides to embrace her role as a villain and freezes
them both as well as the walls of the castle.

She also must have put the forgetting spell on Elsa because
Rumple mentions it when he shows up.
Yep, we’ve hardly frozen the castle when Rumple appears and magically
takes Elsa inside the urn. He will
exchange it for the Sorcerer’s Hat.

And so Ingrid goes to get it. Before she can utter Rumple’s name three
times, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice appears and warns Ingrid about the danger if
Rumple gets a hold of it. He also says
that the Sorcerer is making an exception to his “no deals” rule because Ingrid
has impressed him. If she is as patient
as she claims to be, she will find her third sister and be reunited with
Elsa. All she has to do it return the
hat and walk through a door that has suddenly appeared new them. She does, and finds herself in 1982 New York
just as Emma is about to arrive.

Thus endeth the flashback.
Shalt we get to the present?
(Boy, being tired makes me silly.)

Emma’s powers are still out of control. Henry finds her, but she accidentally hurts
him. The rest of the crew is out to find
her and convince her that they love her and want her back, but they can’t find
her. And Ingrid is after Emma to embrace
who she is.

Emma, however, turns to Gold and asks him to take away her
magic. He says he knows a way to do
that, a powerful spell, but they must do it outside of town – at the mansion
where he found the hat (not that he mentioned that detail to her).

So Emma calls Mary Margaret and reports in on what she is
planning to do. Hook immediately
recognizes that it is bad and rushes out to confront Gold. Gold isn’t in the shop, so Hook leaves Emma a
voicemail confessing all he’s been up to this season and why. He also reveals the truth about the
dagger. He then sees the map with the
mansion circles and rushes out there.

Meanwhile, Elsa overhears a talk between David and Mary
Margaret about how they will support Emma no matter what choice she makes, however,
they sound okay, even happy (not that either will admit it) that Emma is giving
up her magic. Elsa knows it is a bad
choice and uses a location spell from Regina to try to find Emma.

Yes Regina, has come over and winds up healing Henry after his
injury from Emma. They also have a heart
to heart about how he feels being ordinary.
Regina points out that he has the Heart of the Truest Believer, and he’s
responsible for much of what has happened in town, or as responsible as anyone
else.

Then Regina goes and talks to David and Mary Margaret. She convinces them that Emma needs to keep
her magic, and so the group (including Henry) rush out to try to find Emma.

Meanwhile, Gold has trapped Ingrid thanks to ashes from the
urn, a spell that will wear off eventually but will keep her from stopping
Emma. Ingrid finds a way to project
herself via her mirror, and this projection tries to warn Emma, but Emma doesn’t
buy it. Still, it does give her enough
doubts that when she shows up at the mansion, she questions Gold long and hard
about this spell. Gold has the hat set
up in the next room; all Emma has to do is walk inside.

Gold leaves and finds Hook about to rush in and stop
Emma. Gold uses a hose (or vine, but it
looked like a garden hose to me) to trap Hook and keep him from stopping Emma.

However, Elsa, who arrived separately, gets in. She pleads with Emma not to give up her
magic. Elsa also explains the second
part of controlling your magic. Not only
do you need the love of someone you love (Anna for Elsa and Henry for Emma),
but you also need to love and accept who you are – magic and all. When Emma does that, she immediately has
control over her powers again. She goes
outside where her happy family is ready to embrace her.

Meanwhile, Gold has realized his plan has failed. But he reveals to Hook what the secret ingredient
is. Once the hat has enough power, he
needs to give it the heart of someone who knew him before he became The Dark
One. The only person like that left is
Hook, so Gold takes out his heart. But
the hat isn’t ready, so Gold doesn’t crush it yet. Instead, he is going to make Hook his slave
first.

We also got a bit more on the magic book. Regina tells Robin Hood about it as they
spend the night together. Robin sets off
to see if he can gain any clues, enlisting the help of Will Scarlett. Will thinks he’s seen something in the
library, so the two head over there.
Only they are getting nowhere with the research until Robin finds
something in his satchel that wasn’t there before. He quickly calls Regina to come take a look.

When Regina shows up (from the party tracking down Emma),
she finds the new page is a picture of Regina and Robin meeting in that pub all
those years ago. It’s page number 23,
and page 23 in the book is the one that shows Regina walking away from what
could have been her first meeting with Robin all those years ago. Obviously, the message is there is hope, and
Regina can still make new choices that will give her a happy ending.

Gold promised that the urn dust he used to trap Ingrid
wouldn’t last long, and it didn’t. Once Ingrid
is free, she goes to the three ribbons and magically puts them on the three “sisters.” Emma is putting on a magic fireworks show for
her family when Henry spots the ribbon.
Elsa has one, too, and they both feel a pulling, as if the magic is
leaving them.

And Gold shows up at Ingrid’s place. She explains that now that Emma has accepted
her powers, the three are truly sisters, and she can use their power to create
her Spell of Broken Sight over the entire town.
She and Gold have a one upsmanship contest about how is more
powerful. Gold leaves, and Ingrid
unleashes the spell.

End of episode.

So we learn why Anna trapped Elsa in the urn (which was much
like I suspected). We learned how Gold
got Elsa and the urn and how Ingrid got to our world and time. Of course, I’d love to know how she didn’t
age in all that time. I’m also wondering
how this fits with the impression I’ve had if it wasn’t stated outright that
Ingrid knew so much about the hat because she had it for so long. Did I just misunderstand that part? And why couldn’t Anna or Ingrid just open the
urn and let Elsa out? Are Anna and
Kristoff okay somewhere?

I’m kicking myself for not realizing who Gold was going to
have to kill. Of course it would be
Hook. Who else would he enjoy so much?

And I hate a theory on the author of the book. My guess is the Sorcerer wrote it. That’s how new pages appear magically. And how it turns up in weird places. I’m sure we know who the Sorcerer is, but I
can’t place my finger on quite who it is.

Really, this was a great episode. We got lots of revelations and story with
more time for characters to have heart to hearts. Plus there were many very funny lines from
the episode. I left out many of the
heart to heart chats, but you need to go back and watch the episode for that
reason alone. I’m hearing some of those
scene were reworked scenes that were cut from earlier episodes.

The only thing we were missing was Belle, which is funny
since so much happened at the shop and the library. She couldn’t show up in one of those scenes?

Still, I liked it and think the show should be on for two
weeks every week. Unfortunately, we do
have to wait two weeks for our next fix.
Until then, let me know if you have any theories on who the Sorcerer
might be. And is he connected to this
mysterious mansion owner or not.

2 comments:

Great, action packed episode - thank goodness! Finally some answers which actually make sense. I too wonder who the Sorcerer is going to turn out to be. I was surprised Belle was not around and didn't at least overhear Hooks phone message to Emma. And now Hook is Gold's puppet. That ought to make for some interesting interaction with Emma. Good theory on it being the Sorcerer who is the one behind the book.When is part 1 of this Season supposed to end? Did they say that Frozen would only be in this part of the Season? Or do we have more later in 2015? I like this idea of having shorter stories that don't drag on and on. Apparently that is what Gracepoint is going to be like.

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